Concerts: Artist Bios

Ani Kavafian, Violin

Violinist Ani Kavafian has a long history with the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, stretching back to its very first season. She also has a close longstanding association with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and continues to tour the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia with CMS. She is enjoying a busy career as a chamber musician, recitalist, and soloist with orchestras, and is also in great demand as a teacher, having taught at the Mannes and Manhattan schools of music, Queens College, McGill, and Stony Brook universities. In 2006 she was appointed full professor in the practice of violin at Yale. She conducts master classes around the country and was a guest lecturer and performer at Indiana University in 2016. As a soloist, she has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras, as well as the Los Angeles and Saint Paul chamber orchestras. With her sister, Ida, she appears around the country in recital and as soloists with orchestras. She has participated in the Heifetz International Music Institute, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Great Lakes Festival, and Music from Angel Fire Festival. For over 25 years, she was co-artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey. Ms. Kavafian was a 1979 recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize, and has appeared at the White House on three occasions. Her recordings include Bach's six sonatas with Kenneth Cooper on the Kleos Classics label, Mozart sonatas with pianist Jorge Federico Osorio on the Artek label, and Todd Machover's concerto Forever and Ever with the Boston Modern Orchestra. Ms. Kavafian has been a guest concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony and The New Haven Symphony Orchestra, with which she has been a frequent soloist. Her instrument is the 1736 “Muir-McKenzie” Stradivarius.